ArticleJournal of pain and symptom management2025
Medications Reported to the Medicare Hospice Program after Medicare Drug Policy Changes, 2014-2018.
Article in Journal of pain and symptom management, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
contextIn 2014, Medicare hospice policy changed to shift medication payments from Part D to the hospice benefit.
objectiveTo describe patterns of medications reported to the Medicare hospice benefit after the 2014 policy change.
methodsRepeated cross-sectional analysis of medications reported to the Medicare hospice benefit between 2014 and 2018. Data sources include the Medicare Master Beneficiary Summary File and national revenue center claims submissions by Medicare-certified hospices. Main outcome measures by year were the mean number of overall and chronic disease medication dispensing per enrollee, the most common medications billed to the Medicare hospice program, and the proportion of medications for end-of-life, chronic diseases, and potentially inappropriate by Screening Tool of Older Persons Prescriptions in Frail criteria.
resultsBetween 2014 and 2015, the mean number of dispensings per enrollee covered by hospice temporarily increased from 12.1 (standard deviation (SD) 21.5) to 12.4 (SD 23.4) (P<.001) and returned to 12.1 (SD 23.0) in 2016, while the mean number of chronic disease medication dispensings per enrollee increased from 2.8 (SD 2.2) to 3.2. (SD 2.4) (P<.001) and remained stable. Between 2014 and 2018, the proportion of the top 100 drugs covered by hospice that were for chronic disease or met STOPPFrail criteria remained stable, while the proportion of EOL drugs declined temporarily before returning to 2014 levels.
conclusionsThe Medicare hospice program experienced small but statistically significant increases in chronic disease dispensings per enrollee after 2014 policy changes. Whether these were clinically significant or impacted patient outcomes requires further study.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.